Personality,moral purpose,and the leadership of an education for sustainable development

This paper describes how two primary head teachers, nationally recognised as role models for the development of an education for sustainable development (ESD) in their schools, manage the implementation of this area. In doing so, it shows how they adopt two very different approaches to ESD and to their job generally, and suggests that whilst there are some commonalities between them, educational leadership needs to be seen as driven by a moral purpose, engaging and re-engaging with each situation, entering into a dialectic with others’ visions, leading to the re-conceptualisation of problems in different ways. This not only suggests a continued tension between such uniqueness and standardised approaches to headship, but raises questions about current policy imperatives for developing models of sustainable leadership.     

Challenging educational injustice: ‘Grassroots’ privatisation in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa

The phenomenon of low-cost private schools ‘mushrooming’ in poor areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and elsewhere, is now well-documented. Findings from research by the author’s teams and others show that these schools are serving a majority (urban and peri-urban) or significant minority (rural) of the poor, including significant proportions of the poorest of the poor. Concerns are raised in the literature about their implications for social justice. In The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen asks us to rethink ideas about justice; instead of the quest for a Rawlsian ‘transcendental institutionalism’, he argues for a comparative approach, grounded in the practicalities of human behaviour. Linking Sen’s ideas on justice with the grassroots privatisation leads to the tentative conclusion that those concerned with promoting social justice could agree to help improve access to, and quality in, the low-cost private school sector, rather than focus on the public education sector. Paradoxically, this could be true even for those whose ideal is an egalitarian public education system.     

Certification and specialized competencies for teachers in gifted education programs

This article describes the value of Piaget's equilibration theory for understanding characteristics of the young gifted child. Key elements of equilibration theory are discussed. Differences in the equilibration patterns in gifted children are described and application of equilibration to other than cognitive systems is considered. The article concludes with some ideas for teachers and parents to help gifted young children search for equilibrium.     

According to Jim: The Flawed Normal Curve of Intelligence

This article proposes a critical thinking approach to cultural literacy for gifted students. The premise of the article is that all students profit from a curriculum rich in reasoning within and about diverse cultural points of view on historical and contemporary reality. The article posits that increasing racial, gender and socioeconomic intolerance can only be confronted with a curriculum that affords students the opportunity to enter em‐pathetically within cultural points of view often similar or disparate from their own. The author also attempts to call attention to issues of educational equity to assure that all students, gifted or potentially gifted, do not become tracked or placed in remedial learning programs owed solely to their cultural background, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class.     

Differential Teacher Effectiveness: Towards a model for research and teacher appraisal

The article reviews the research on teacher effectiveness and develops the case for a model of teacher effectiveness in which differential effectiveness is incorporated. Five problems with current concepts of teacher effectiveness are identified: undue influence of available techniques upon the concept; emphasis on school, to the detriment of teacher, effectiveness; tenuous relationship to teacher improvement; narrowness of operational definitions in research; and the development of generic, rather than differentiated, models. In addition the failure of existing models to explain variance in pupil outcome at the classroom level, the neglect of teacher self-evaluation, and the restricted measures of pupil outcomes are noted. A differential model is proposed incorporating five dimensions of difference. These refer to teacher activity, outside as well as inside the classroom; curriculum subject; pupil background factors; pupil personal characteristics; cultural and organisational contexts of teaching. The developmental functions of such a model for research and for teacher appraisal are explored. Four problems for implementing a differentiated model are raised: complexity, stakeholder expectations, values, and policy acceptability. These are considered in the light of the controversial Hay McBer model in England and of models developed in Europe and the USA in the early decades of the last century.     

Rewards and Costs of Faculty Involvement in Intergenerational Service-Learning

Service-learning (S-L) has been regarded as a relatively well-established and effective teaching pedagogy. Students who participate in S-L are more likely to learn more efficiently, more effectively, and remember more of what they have learned than their counterparts. Current studies have been done on the experiences of students in service-learning and implementing S-L components. Other research has focused on the barriers to conducting effective S-L. However, no qualitative studies have examined a faculty component of S-L. Also, there have been few studies or discussions delineating faculty perceptions or experiences in S-L. An e-mail survey supplemented with personal interviews was utilized in an effort to understand experiences of participating in S-L. Of specific interest were faculty perceptions of the costs and rewards in employing S-L in gerontology-related curriculums.     

Usability Testing of BusinessThinkingTM e-Learning CD-ROMs with Older Adults

BusinessThinking^TM is a computer-based e-learning package designed to teach technology skills and business information to adults, ages 50–69, who remain in the workforce. This article outlines results from usability testing for the material on using technology applications (Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and the Internet), and career development (career management and preretirement planning. In Study 1, a usability test was conducted to ensure that the material was user-friendly. In Studies 2 and 3, the PowerPoint and career development materials were redesigned according to the findings from Study 1. Results indicated that the redesign was effective in increasing navigation of the material.     

Ultrafast microfluidics using surface acoustic waves

We demonstrate that surface acoustic waves (SAWs), nanometer amplitude Rayleigh waves driven at megahertz order frequencies propagating on the surface of a piezoelectric substrate, offer a powerful method for driving a host of extremely fast microfluidic actuation and micro∕bioparticle manipulation schemes. We show that sessile drops can be translated rapidly on planar substrates or fluid can be pumped through microchannels at 1–10 cm∕s velocities, which are typically one to two orders quicker than that afforded by current microfluidic technologies. Through symmetry-breaking, azimuthal recirculation can be induced within the drop to drive strong inertial microcentrifugation for micromixing and particle concentration or separation. Similar micromixing strategies can be induced in the same microchannel in which fluid is pumped with the SAW by merely changing the SAW frequency to rapidly switch the uniform through-flow into a chaotic oscillatory flow by exploiting superpositioning of the irradiated sound waves from the sidewalls of the microchannel. If the flow is sufficiently quiescent, the nodes of the transverse standing wave that arises across the microchannel also allow for particle aggregation, and hence, sorting on nodal lines. In addition, the SAW also facilitates other microfluidic capabilities. For example, capillary waves excited at the free surface of a sessile drop by the SAW underneath it can be exploited for micro∕nanoparticle collection and sorting at nodal points or lines at low powers. At higher powers, the large accelerations off the substrate surface as the SAW propagates across drives rapid destabilization of the drop free surface giving rise to inertial liquid jets that persist over 1–2 cm in length or atomization of the entire drop to produce 1–10 μm monodispersed aerosol droplets, which can be exploited for ink-jet printing, mass spectrometry interfacing, or pulmonary drug delivery. The atomization of polymer∕protein solutions can also be used for the rapid synthesis of 150–200 nm polymer∕protein particles or biodegradable polymeric shells in which proteins, peptides, and other therapeutic molecules are encapsulated within for controlled release drug delivery. The atomization of thin films behind a translating drop containing polymer solutions also gives rise to long-range spatial ordering of regular polymer spots whose size and spacing are dependent on the SAW frequency, thus offering a simple and powerful method for polymer patterning without requiring surface treatment or physical∕chemical templating.     

Evaluation of immunohistochemistry and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay for HER-2/neu expression in breast carcinoma

HER-2 is overexpressed in approximately 20–30% of invasive Breast Cancer. ECD of the HER-2 protein is frequently cleaved and released into the circulation, where it can be detected by ELISA in up to 45% of patients with metastatic breast cancer. The objective of our study was to compare the current methods for the detection of HER-2 protein. Tissue HER-2 levels were studied in 100 breast cancer patients by IHC and compared with serum HER-2 levels by ELISA. IHC frequency was 29%. Serum HER-2 ECD was positive in 42% of patients. A statistically significant correlation was observed. HER-2 detected by IHC correlates significantly with serum HER-2 levels detected by ELISA. Thus, ELISA is a reliable and economical tool to assess the HER-2 status in tumors, when breast tissue sample is not available.     

The private finance initiative, project form and design innovation: The UK's hospitals programme

This paper discusses the role of public demand, in the form of a government procurement policy, in generating innovative solutions for healthcare infrastructure. It considers the effects of the project delivery system (planning, finance, construction and operation) for new hospitals on design innovation. It focuses on hospitals built under the UK's private finance initiative (PFI), which was partly introduced to inject increased innovation into hospital delivery. We use case studies of six early PFI hospitals to argue that the introduction of PFI has increased the complexity at the interface between project delivery and hospital operational functions. The result is a project delivery model which yields less innovative outcomes and produces facilities that might not be able to cope with future changes in demand. The paper suggests that new public procurement models do not automatically provide efficiency and innovation benefits.